The 45-foot-tall spruce from a farm in upstate New York arrived Monday morning and was placed with a crane. (Jonathan Spiers photos)
With a giant Christmas tree delivered and its main entrance no longer obstructed, CarMax Park appears on track to host its biggest event yet: the inaugural, six-week WinterWorld festival.
Initial setup for the event is underway at the ballpark, where a 45-foot-tall Norway Spruce arrived Monday morning from upstate New York and was lifted via crane onto the stadium’s northwest concourse, where it is visible from along Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
The installation signaled the start of more visible work that’s set to ramp up in coming weeks, leading up to the 38-day festival that kicks off Nov. 19. By Monday evening, a Ferris wheel had also been erected on the grounds.
Crews started prepping the grounds last week, laying down flooring across the field and erecting scaffolding for light displays and event attractions.
Temporary flooring covers the field, which will be replaced after the event.
Announced over the summer, WinterWorld is planned to feature over a million lights, a 13,000-square-foot ice skating “pond,” a 100-foot ice slide with six lanes, a 60-foot Ferris wheel, and the tree, which organizers say will be the largest live Christmas tree in Richmond.
Also planned is a Santa’s workshop, snowball speed pitch, Christmas tree maze, 21-and-older bar, and private spaces for holiday parties. The festival also is planned to involve performances from area schools and community groups, as well as participation from local small businesses in a retail village.
Navigators Baseball, which owns the Richmond Flying Squirrels and CarMax Park’s events company, 804Live, is putting more than $3 million into WinterWorld, which they expect will draw more than 75,000 people.
A rendering of CarMax Park transformed as WinterWorld. (Image courtesy 804Live)
804Live President Chris Yancey, whose experience in the entertainment industry includes Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in New York City and overseeing venues as an executive with Caesars Entertainment, said the undertaking for WinterWorld is so far going according to plan – save for the tree placement, which was originally planned for the ballfield but was moved to the concourse.
Yancey said the spot – beside the left outfield and between the ballpark’s VIP entrance and Atlantic Union Bank Lounge – allows the tree to be part of the festival while also serving as a signal for it to passersby on the boulevard.
The 45-foot-tall tree was placed on the concourse beside the left outfield, where it is visible from Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
“We just wanted it to be very visible and sort of a beacon to the event,” Yancey said. “We wanted to make sure that it was part of the holistic event inside the park, but we did want to make sure that it was more visible from the street and a nice holiday beacon. We looked at a couple of different options and decided that was the most high-profile place to put it.”
The tree is from Egan Acres Tree Farm in upstate New York, where Squirrels owner Lou DiBella and other Navigators Baseball principals are based. The driver of the truck that delivered the tree arrived Monday donning a Santa hat and jacket, as DiBella did when he announced the event in July.
The event prep is starting just as infrastructure work that obstructed parts or all of CarMax Park’s centerfield entrance has wrapped up in front of the main gates.
Concrete pavers are in place where asphalt had been, and the gates were fully accessible Monday morning, with a construction fence for the adjacent Diamond District development positioned to allow access to the ballpark’s nearby ticket office and team store, as well.
The planned work for the development that limited or restricted access to the entrance since September was completed around Oct. 23, according to a spokesperson for the Richmond Economic Development Authority, which is overseeing the project led by development group Diamond District Partners (DDP).
Concrete pavers are now in place where asphalt had been at the main entrance.
The work has been a point of contention between the Navigators and the EDA, which have traded emails and lawyer letters over several months about the obstruction and potential ways around it. The EDA spokesperson, Bryonna Head, said the work in front of the entrance is done and that the gates would be fully accessible for the duration of WinterWorld, which is scheduled to run through Jan. 3.
Head added that the fencing for remaining infrastructure work would be moved farther away from the gates as the work is completed. She said those plans have been communicated to the Navigators, with Squirrels representatives taking part in weekly logistics meetings. A Navigators spokesperson did not return an email from BizSense seeking confirmation about the entrance.
Meanwhile, the Navigators are suing the EDA and the City of Richmond over alleged changes and delays to the Diamond District project. That lawsuit is in the discovery phase, with subpoenas recently served on several city and EDA officials, as well as on DDP and group lead Thalhimer Realty Partners, according to filings. A separate defamation lawsuit between DiBella and TRP principal Jason Guillot is headed for settlement.
A Ferris wheel had also been erected on the grounds by Monday night.
While those disputes play out, Yancey said WinterWorld will show CarMax Park’s capabilities as a year-round events venue, adding to other non-baseball events such as last weekend’s Squirrel-O-Ween and the Scott’s Addition Pumpkin Festival, which was held at CarMax Park on Saturday.
Of WinterWorld, Yancey said, “We’re really gratified about the response so far, and it’s really exciting to see this come together. We spent a lot of time planning for it, a lot of meetings, a lot of conversations, but it’s really tangible now and exciting to watch it go up and be built and see this vision come to life. We think it’s going to be a pretty great experience.”
The post Tree delivery signals start of WinterWorld setup at CarMax Park appeared first on Richmond BizSense.
